Biophysics works at the boundary between physics, biology, chemistry, and medicine. It combines elements of all these disciplines with a strong focus on physics and deals with the function and structure as well as the dynamics of biological systems. Its big goal can be summarized as "elucidating the basic processes of the foundations of life." Within the Department of Bionanosciences, our biophysics research is based on applied physics, colloid and interface science. It is also the cornerstone of our teaching.
Experimentally we focus on the characterization of biological materials, i.e., human and plant cells, bacteria, biopolymers, and lipids) at micro and macromolecular scales in terms of mechanical structure and spectroscopic properties and their relation to function. Other topics of frequent investigation are molecular and surface interactions, cell-cell, and cell-surface interactions. Our contributions to biophysics also include applying graph theory and network analysis to get plausible information from big data sets. These methods aim to be universal and can be used in disciplines like sports science or human geography.
